


A Quick Trip

by anticyclone



Category: Innkeeper Chronicles - Ilona Andrews
Genre: Aliens, F/M, Fights, Minor Canonical Character(s), Minor Violence, Plans going awry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28144077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anticyclone/pseuds/anticyclone
Summary: "It'll be a quick trip," Maud said, more to herself than to Arland. "No one will even notice we're gone."Pirates are plaguing an ally, just outside of vampire space. Maud and Arland don some aesthetically beat-up armor and try to get more information from the pirates themselves. Of course, plans only last until you meet your enemy. Or your enemy's giant alien attack boar.
Relationships: Maud Demille/Arland Krahr
Comments: 10
Kudos: 26
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	A Quick Trip

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pameluke](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pameluke/gifts).



"This is an abomination," Arland declared.

"No," Maud told him. "It only looks like an abomination. Which is what we need."

Arland narrowed his eyes. "I don't like this plan."

Maud squared her shoulders and lifted her chin. Their eyes connected. A predator looked at her. Arland towered above her. His pale blond hair had been pulled back from his face and only served to highlight his strong jaw. Unhappiness glinted in his eyes, and his upper lip curled just enough to expose a hint of sharp teeth. Arland glowered and he grumbled. It rolled through the otherwise quiet office like a promise.

The Marshall of House Krahr was displeased and he wanted her to know it.

Maud said, "You don't have to like it, my lord. You just have to execute it."

Arland snatched the case out of her hand. Then he put it down on the desk between them and began stripping off his own armor.

"You don't have to change right now," Maud said, crossing her arms over her chest. She rested her weight on one foot and leaned back. What she wanted to do was sit, but the situation was still prickly enough that she thought standing would give her better ground to argue from.

"No, no." Arland curled his hands into claws and pried his armor off him piece by piece. His lip was still curled and his nose had wrinkled furiously, but Maud didn't miss that he took care to set his own armor aside gently. He cleared one arm and began work on the other, the pieces piling up on his desk and in his chair. "By all means, let's get this terrible idea over with."

"It's called stealth."

"I know what stealth is."

"Do you?" Maud raised one eyebrow.

Arland flashed his teeth at her. Maud would have felt a sliver of concern (maybe) if his mouth hadn't also curled up at the corners. It was brief, but in the past few months she had gotten used to looking at Arland's face, and she knew a smile when she saw one, no matter how quick. He told her, "Where do you think Helen has been learning it?"

"That place you call a nursery," Maud said, very seriously.

Arland grumbled again.

"Do you want help with removing the rest of your armor?"

"A knight is perfectly capable of dressing himself, my lady," he said. He had bared his chest now and begun working on his legs.

Usually, in the privacy of their rooms, Maud liked to help with his legs. She started to suggest that they stick to their routine.

Someone knocked at the door.

Arland opened his mouth reflexively to invite them inside. Maud reached across the table and pinched his arm, hard, which made him hiss but also stopped him from surprising whoever it was with the fact that he was half naked and mostly out of his armor. Maud pointedly shoved the case on his desk toward Arland and turned around, walking to the door herself. She heard more grumbling behind her. She also heard the metallic click of the case popping open, though, so she decided to let it slide.

"Who is it?" Maud asked the door.

"Me," Karat said. "Let me in."

"Do not let her in," Arland said.

Maud glanced over her shoulder. The muscles in Arland's arms and chest stretched as he maneuvered himself into the new suit of armor, the one she'd brought with her in the case. The one he had objected to so strongly. In the bright light of his office the metal looked gray and worn. There were spots where the coating had been rubbed away to dullness, and other spots where repairs in tricky places (like the back of his thigh) had been attempted and visibly botched. Arland scowled as he locked himself into the legs of the new armor.

"I can't let you in yet, but I can come out there," Maud said. She heard a sigh on the other side of the door, but when she opened it, Karat moved aside to let Maud step into the hallway.

"What did he say?" Karat asked.

"The Marshall sees the wisdom of our plan," Maud said, which made her cousin-in-law bark out a laugh. Maud would have done the same if several other people in the hall hadn't glanced up at the noise. She bent her head forward and added in a lower voice, "How quickly can we get out of here?"

"As soon as you're both dressed, we can leave. I have a small craft waiting."

"Great."

Karat left, presumably to go wait with the spaceship. Maud turned around and went back into the office. Arland had finished with both of his legs and moved onto outfitting himself in the new armored chest pieces. These looked as bad as the rest of it. There was a particularly impressive dent on the left side. Arland held it up so the light caught the indentation, then gestured to it with his free hand and showed her his fangs, as if to say, _Can you see this shit?_

"It's all put together by House Krahr engineers. The armor is perfectly sound. It's just ugly. You can put up with ugly for an evening," Maud said.

She picked up the other case, the one she'd left at the door earlier. With the door locked and no one else (hopefully) coming to knock on it, she began putting herself into her own alternate suit of armor.

She wasn't going to tell Arland she had argued with the engineers about just using her old armor. The set she had worn on Karhari. If what they needed to do was project the image of down-on-their-luck mercenaries in dire need of funds, there was no better way to do it than the armor she'd worn when she'd been a mercenary in dire need of funds.

But the engineers had told her in unequivocal terms that even if she was the Maven, they weren't putting her back in her old armor. They gave her a brand new roughed-up set instead.

As she pulled it out of the case Arland stopped, aghast. He had almost finished securing the plates to his left arm. "Is that your old armor?"

"No."

He squinted. "Are you sure?"

"The engineers may have used some footage from Karhari for reference," Maud said.

Arland shook his head and finished locking himself into the new armor. There was only so much they could do about each of their crests. They did look out of place, but the likelihood of anyone recognizing the exact crest was low. The pirates they were after hunted a different area of vampire space than House Krahr's. Specifically, the ships had been targeting a spot two hyperspace jumps away from Daesyn. This would have been someone else's problem, except that the tachi had a research station in that area, and kept leaving House Krahr space only to land in the middle of a pirate nest.

Something had to be done. The end point of the tachi's journey was outside vampire space, but now that they were allies, House Krahr couldn't stand by while tachi ships were raided. And where they were going, cloaks weren't allowed. Everyone would see their armor. An updated and well-maintained suit would paint a target on their backs the second they walked through the door.

Maud stripped herself and began assembling her new armor. And she only got distracted by Arland helping a little bit.

"In and out," she said, breathing calmly, trying to appreciate only the skill involved as Arland's hands settled on her thigh and snapped plates of her armor into place. "Quick. We're gathering information and getting out. No scenes, no heroics."

"No scenes," Arland repeated, his fingers stroking the back of her calf. He snapped the last piece of armor into place on her leg. "No heroics."

While he'd done her legs, Maud had put her chest and arms into place. She pressed her House Krahr crest into the armor and resisted the urge to sigh softly as it lit up. Sometimes she thought that there would be a day she didn't need to see the crest illuminate to remind herself that she no longer wore a blank one. But it hadn't been long enough for her muscles to forget her experiences on Karhari, and she was still growing her hair out, so that day wasn't today.

"It'll be a quick trip," she said, more to herself than to Arland. "No one will even notice we're gone."

***

When they'd been children, Baha-char had been one of the few opportunities for travel. Maud's parents had been needed at the inn. Because there were two of them, it was easier to run errands, and once she and her siblings had been old enough, it had been easier still…

Maud paused at the corner of the street and inhaled. The thick smells of a dozen cuisines filled her nose. Spiced soups, smoked meats, delicately baked breads. Hundreds of restaurants served visitors to Baha-char. The street they were about to turn onto was one of many narrow ones crowded with food stalls, takeaway windows, and cozy spots to nestle inside and eat your weight in pastry.

Of course the place they wanted was at the end of the street. It had an awning stretching out over the doorway. The shutters over the windows were closed. From here, the whole bar looked closed.

Maud knew better.

"Have you visited this place before?" Arland asked.

He'd come to a halt behind her, just at her shoulder, and lowered his voice. They stood a little ways off so traffic could continue around them. Kids with faces and pincers sticky from candy streamed past. A small child with neon orange fur ran by, giggling, great globs of what looked like bubblegum stuck around her mouth and (somehow) behind one of her tall, twitching ears.

"No," Maud told Arland. "But my mother did. Sometimes she went here to buy things the inn needed. My father would take us to the candy shop and we would sit out front while he watched the end of the street."

Her father had always worried so much, about so many things, but during those visits he'd always tried to hide it. Mom had always said, 'Gerard, I choose this place because it does not allow hiding. The lights are bright and you can see any weapon anyone carries.' And her father would reply, 'Helen, it's the predators that don't feel a need to hide that worry me the most.'

Arland put a hand on her shoulder. Maud blinked. She must have gotten quiet. She stood up a little straighter and inhaled. She wasn't worried about being attacked - even if she had been by herself, which she was most assuredly not going to be, she had her blood sword carefully sheathed on her back. Besides, if anyone didn't feel a need to hide, it was Arland. Maud herself knew the value of hiding when necessary. She was sure that in the abstract Arland did grasp stealth perfectly well. He wouldn't be alive if he didn't. But she also remembered the bar on Karhari, and, well… 

"We should stop in there," Arland murmured, as they passed the candy store. It still had the same faded wooden sign hanging next to the door that Maud remembered from when she'd been too short to reach up and touch it.

"Carrying a bag full of brightly wrapped candy is not what I call moving under the radar."

"On the way back," he clarified.

Maud smiled.

A short walk brought them to the door. Maud knocked, and a small window in the door opened. Several eyes in a face likely to have even more of them peered out at her, then at Arland, then back at her, then quickly (and slightly startled) back to Arland. The multicolor pupils in the eyes widened and Maud saw some eyelashes blinking. There was a momentary pause.

"We come armed and unmistakable," Maud said. "We do not come to cause harm, but we will not allow it to befall us."

Maud may never have needed to go here herself, but she remembered. Mom had never walked any of them to the door. She _had_ made Dad memorize the greeting, in case she ever overshot her timeline and he needed to make a retrieval. That had only happened once. Maud had been in charge of taking Klaus and Dina into the little alley next to the candy shop and hiding until their parents had returned, disheveled and breathing hard but not bloody or bruised. She'd never asked what had happened.

Arland held up one hand. He'd produced a small currency chip and held it between two fingers. "We also come ready to spend," he said, and smiled.

The smile had not been part of the script. The viewing window closed and the door swung open anyway.

Everyone looked up when they entered the bar area just past the front door. It was that kind of place. Then the other patrons dismissed Arland and Maud both as 'not my problem' and went back to their own problems, whether that be gently smoking drinks in tall glasses or the people sitting next to them. The lights in the bar hid very little.

It meant it was easy to spot their target. Three tygil sat at a five-person table near the center of the room. Maud nudged Arland with her elbow nad lead him over. If he had any opinion on the tygil, it didn't show on his face.

Tygil didn't come to Earth often, but when they did, they preferred high humidity rooms. Mom had always put down carpets of exotic moss and lichen because a tygil prone to travel tended to like experiencing the local, and it was next to impossible for a six-foot-tall frog person to casually stroll around an Earth town. Even one as small as they'd grown up next to. Traveling tygil wore something that resembled a dive suit but kept moisture inside. These were bright yellow with dappled spots of black. The one in the middle had faint stripes of turquoise underneath his eyes and running under his lower lip.

He fixed Arland with fist-sized, solid black eyes. "You didn't say you were bringing a second person with you," he said. Maud's translation unit handled it perfectly, but her ears still picked up a slight croak in the pirate's voice. "We don't deal with vampires."

"People who don't hire vampires are people who lose," Maud said, flat. She did not pull out a chair. Arland stood next to her, impassive.

A sac in the tygil's throat expanded as he took a deep breath. His yellow skin took on a turquoise tinge where the skin stretched over the air sac. "We don't," he repeated, "deal with vampires."

Arland looked at her.

Maud curled her lip. "You saw my armor when I called. If you can't understand what's right in front of your eyes, then maybe you're too stupid to work for."

The tygil's throat swelled. Arland shifted his weight. Next to the leader, the other two pirates leaned in.

Then the tygil laughed, his throat going back to normal. He grinned, his mouth open and toothless. "For you, we will work with a vampire," he said. He pointed a triple-jointed finger at himself. "Ectresh."

"Bella and Edward," Maud said.

She heard Arland choke in the back of his throat, but his lips barely twitched.

Maud sat. Arland considered the other chair, then pushed it all the way in and remained standing. Around them tables began to clear out as people decided they wanted to sit at the bar or shuffle closer to the edges of the room. No one left. It wasn't a fight they objected to, it was getting caught up in the splatter.

A server walked over with a tray. The tygil each got fluted glasses with a clear, pearlescent liquid inside. Maud was handed a shot glass that smelled of vodka when she lifted it to her nose. She took half a sip and put it down. Arland was handed a white ceramic mug. The drink itself was covered in a layer of foam. Someone had drawn a flower with big leaves coming off the sides on top, the art cutting pale lines through the dark brown. Arland sniffed it, raised one eyebrow, and set the latte down on the table. He passed the server the credit chip they'd walked in with, and she went back to the bar.

"Can't hold your caffeine?" Ectresh sneered.

"I don't drink while I'm working," Arland said.

"We didn't come here to drink," Maud said. "You said you had a job for us."

Ectresh wrapped several fingers around his drink. "They're starting to get wise to our usual strategies, but we aren't done with them yet. We have three ships arriving a week from now and we need backup to surprise them with."

Arland said, "You seem awfully confident there will be three ships."

"I find it difficult to believe the tachi would share that information so freely."

Ectresh grinned. "Hey, it's on the schedule. Scientists and their conferences!"

Ugh. Maud was going to have to talk to Dil'ki about security again. The royal families and their guards had a better grasp on it than graduate students. It was probably the same everywhere.

They started talking about expectations and payment. Ectresh said that Maud was asking for too much and he would have to talk things over with home base, which meant he had upper management to report to and hadn't actually been authorized to pay them anything.

Maud tried not to be irritated. It had been hard enough to get time to come here themselves. Now that they'd shown their faces, if they wanted to deal with Ectresh again, it would have to be her and Arland. Or at least her and Karat, although at a certain point Ectresh would probably start asking why Maud only knew vampires. She didn't want to wait another week.

They could show up at the battle and sabotage it, but then they would have to get Soren involved at the least. Otubar would need to be informed as well. He would have to be informed anyway, but it would go over better if they were already finished with the whole affair first.

Maud pushed back from the table. "You don't seem very serious to me. If we're not dealing with the people who make hiring decisions, then we're not dealing."

Ectresh's throat expanded again. He pushed his nearly-empty glass to the side and leaned over the table. "Don't be so rash," he told her, stretching out one arm. Two of his three-fingered fingers wrapped around Maud's wrist.

It was a good thing she had worn good armor for this. The coloring of these tygil suggested they secreted poison from their skin, and Ectresh hadn't had the courtesy to wear gloves. Maud glared.

"I know a threat when I see one," she said.

Or she would have, if the other tygil hadn't taken that moment to leap over the table at Arland. It happened so fast she wasn't sure whether they moved first or whether Arland casually yanked Ectresh's hand off her wrist first, but both definitely happened. Ectresh tipped backwards in his chair, arms flailing, and the other two tygil wrapped themselves around Arland's arms before he could fully draw his sword. He took several steps back and one of the tygil laughed. Her throat tinted an angry green where her air sac stretched.

Ectresh grabbed the edge of the table and started to haul himself to his feet. Maud raised her knee into the underside of the table as hard as she could, using her other leg to push down on the floor and shove herself to her feet. She did both so quickly that the table flipped all the way back. It smashed into Ectresh's face and both he and the table fell to the floor.

Arland, meanwhile, had lifted both his arms. The tygil realized that not only was Arland more than a foot taller than him, but he was more than capable of picking them both up at the same time. The female who had laughed started to let go of his arm.

Arland chose that moment to spin. Maud had jumped up to smash the table down into Ectresh's chest, so she was out of the way already. Arland turned so fast that both of the tygil yelled.

The female had made a mistake, starting to let go. It meant that she didn't have the grip to keep hold of Arland as he sank all of his muscle into the spin. She went flying over the top of the nearest table. Her body made a solid _thud_ and her throat swelled up as she hit the clear protective wall the bartender had called up as soon as the fighting started. Her throat swelled up and she fell to the floor, croaking.

Maud's translation unit came up with: "Oh, shit."

The other tygil had a tighter grip. Arland slammed him into the nearest empty table. The table cracked down the middle. The tygil let go, and Arland picked him up and threw him into the barrier at the bar too. He fell right on top of the other pirate.

Maud looked down at Ectresh. Ectresh wheezed. She crouched and bared her teeth at him. "Tell your superiors to call us when they're ready to pay."

"You'll-" Ectresh gasped. "Regret this!"

Maud stood, stepped off the table, and stalked to the door. Arland followed. He passed another currency chip to the many-eyed door watcher and they stepped outside together. Maud's hands itched to do something with her sword, but she kept her chin up and walked calmly away from the bar. Disappointment stung her chest.

"We can warn the tachi, at least," she said, quietly.

"Yes," Arland agreed. "But-"

Something roared.

They looked at each other. Maud said, "It could be unrelated."

Somewhere behind them, Ectresh screamed, "Get them!"

***

Maud's lungs burned as she ran. Behind them, the wall of a shop exploded. Stone crashed down in fist-sized chunks and shoppers ran for cover. Someone zipped past them. All Maud got from the corner of her eye was the suggestion of wings and a stack of boxers higher than Arland was tall.

"Stealth was clearly too much to hope for!" Maud cried.

Arland snapped his teeth. "He _grabbed_ you. He put his hands on you."

"He has a urept boar!"

"We didn't know that," Arland pointed out. He grimaced. "I still would have fought."

More shoppers cried out, and there was another crash, this one louder. It was followed by a roar so deep that Maud felt it rattle her skull.

No more time to argue. "Turn!" Maud said, banking a sharp left.

Arland was two steps ahead of her. Instead of trying to stop, he leapt into the air, kicked the wall of a shop, and used the momentum to turn himself. Maud saw it all in the reflection of a mirror-walled storefront just ahead. By the time she passed its door, Arland was beside her again.

The mass of shoppers ahead of them didn't pay much attention. Some people moved one way, and some moved another, and a tiny path opened up. It widened a little when Arland drew his weapon and roared on his own, nearly as loud as the urept boar, but the path was only wide enough for him to barrel through the crowd without having to turn sideways. That was Baha-char for you. The path had more than enough space for Maud, so she didn't argue.

She just ran after her husband, head down, weapon held tight to her side. There was no room to run with it properly drawn. They bolted past tall, narrow buildings streaming with banners of every color and in fabrics from every kind of planet. A spider silk flag whipped above their heads as they darted down a side street. A nearly sheer length of gauze made from hand-plucked wild grass almost tangled in Arland's hair. He yanked it down and threw it through the open window of the shop as they passed.

People may not have been interested in moving for them, but Maud could hear scattering as the urept boar forced its way down the street. Doors open and slammed as people tried to get out of its way. Stall fronts crunched loudly where the street wasn't wide enough to allow the creature by.

"We need room," Arland told her, scowling. "If we fight it now, we'll be cutting into the crowd."

The storefronts were starting to look familiar. Maud sank herself into her run. Her feet pounded stone and her steps sent shocks up her legs. "Follow me," she ordered.

Arland fell in behind her. He must have been pulling his steps a little, because his legs were so much longer than her own, but it didn't slow them down much. Now that the urept closing in, too, its bounding run echoing through the street behind them, the crowd was more willing to get out of their way. The shouting probably helped. Maud watched a few more stubborn people see her, scowl, glance up, see _Arland,_ and duck into the nearest doorway.

The urept caught up to them just as they entered a wide-open area for pop-up stalls.

A broad fountain sat in the middle of the courtyard. It had a series of wide stone bowls in the middle, each only slightly narrower than the last. At night it light up from inside the rims of the bowls. The water was clear, cool, and safe to drink. It was one of the few places in Baha-char that didn't charge money. In the distant forgotten past, some merchants had decided it was worth giving away something for free if it meant attracting foot traffic.

Which meant that when the urept boar leapt over Maud and Arland's heads, foamy spit dripping from its huge jaws, there were dozens and dozens of people to scream in horror.

It landed between them and the fountain. Tiny clouds of fine sand and dirt puffed up around its legs. The screaming and scurrying crowd must be throwing it off, because it tossed its head back and forth and scuffed its front hooves against the ground without turning to try to eat Maud and Arland.

Urept boars stood between ten and fifteen feet tall. This one was - of course - closer to fifteen than ten. Maud guessed this one was also twenty feet long. Coated in short red fur so thick it could belong to a seal, it had lean legs leading up to a solid body and a spine like a snake. When it finally figured out it was facing the wrong direction it was able to turn its head around to face them without moving its back legs. Maud would shudder if she had never seen an urept before.

Its tail was a long, terrible extension of its spine, half as long as its body and thickly muscled. The tail ended in an eruption of dense red-and-white fur. Maud had watched urept boars knock grown warriors flat with those tails.

The urept opened its mouth. A flat purple tongue sagged forward, dripping more spit, and its muzzle crinkled as it sniffed at them. Two huge white tusks erupted from either side of its mouth, arcing up and over its muzzle, crossing in front of the boar's long nose before curling back down on the opposite side of its mouth. It meant that trying to stab the creature in the muzzle was a losing proposition. The tusks were thick and strong. A blood weapon would surely cut them, but first Maud would have to get her blade aimed correctly, and there were easier spots to go after.

"This will have to do," Arland said, scanning the vicinity.

Almost no one was left in the courtyard now. A couple of stragglers either tried to gather up their shopping or pick through things that had been dropped. There was nothing to be done about them - They would get out of the way, or Maud would have to move them when she was closer.

"Its skull is incredibly thick. The weak points are the joints in the jaw, and the underbelly," Maud told him. "If we-"

"Vampire scum!" Ectresh screamed. There were other screams, too, and when Arland and Maud both looked behind them, she saw the pirate shoving his way through fleeing shoppers.

Maud would have rolled her eyes if they'd had the time. "Boar or pirate?"

"Pirate," Arland said, instantly.

Ectresh emerged from the ragged edge of the crowd and drew two swords. Curved blades, thicker in the middle than at either end. The kind of sword a person really needed to know to avoid slicing themselves to ribbons. It was a showy weapon. Perfect for a pirate who needed fear more than blood.

"Don't kill him."

Arland looked at her. "He put his hands on you," he repeated.

"We still need the names of his superiors," she said. The urept hissed at her, and she nodded at Arland. "Go!"

"My lady." Arland charged forward.

Maud twisted to face the urept. It flicked its tail again. She swung her sword and primed it at the last second so the blood edge caught the fringed end of the tail. The urept jerked its back legs away from her, swinging its hips around so they slammed into the fountain. Stone cracked. Two bowls went crashing down. Water surged everywhere. So much water that it took Maud a moment to realize the urept had broken the internal structure of the fountain, and now water was spraying all over the courtyard. _Fantastic._

The fountain had been knocked into an angle. Maud ran away from the direction of the water and swung her sword as she moved. The air whined as she cut. The blade glowed red. The urept's eyes tracked her movement and it lowered its head, snorting. It jerked its jaw up, left, then right, tearing at the air with its tusks, then shoved forward, hooves smashing tiles of stone underneath it.

Maud spun out of the way and caught a glimpse of the battle at the other end of the courtyard. Arland had sheathed his sword. What the hell?

But the urept fell back to earth, cutting off her view. It bit at the air. Its mouth snapped shut just a foot in front of Maud, teeth slicing through air she had just been standing in before flinging herself backward. That purple tongue lashed out and teeth gnashed in front of her. Huge black eyes fixed on her face.

"Sorry," she said, lifting her sword. "I'm not getting eaten today."

It lunged forward, and Maud slashed. Her sword caught the corner of its mouth and left behind a jagged teaser. It reared back, howling.

Maud dashed underneath it, dragging her sword along its underbelly. The blade split skin and blood spilled out onto her head. It steamed in the air and splashed into Maud's hair and eyes. She threw herself to the side before the urept could land and squash her. Her shoulder hit crushed tile and she rolled, popping back up to her feet.

A split second's view showed her Arland and Ectresh on the other side of the fountain. Ectresh hissed and spat as he fought, and one of his stupid curved swords was missing. Arland was using his armor as a shield. Ectresh's weapons weren't enough to cut through it, but it still made Maud wince internally to see Arland deliberately raise his arm to catch Ectresh's sword on a downward thrust.

The urept swung its huge head at her. Maud danced back, losing sight of Arland again.

She turned into a whirlwind. She hacked and slashed, completely inelegant moves, but too fast for the urept to get in between. It bit at the air and never made contact. She burst forward, landing another cut along the side of its mouth but missing her target at the place where its jaw joined together. It jerked its head straight up again, the force of the move lifting its hooves from the ground. Maud looked for Arland on the other side of the courtyard but only saw Ectresh, fleeing something, hands empty of both swords now, and the brief view of terrified faces crowded together in a shop window.

The boar landed again. More crushed tile. More growling. It snarled at her and pawed at the ground.

Who knew how many more people had only gone from the courtyard into the buildings around its edges. This needed to be over and now.

Maud ran forward, screaming as loud as any vampire.

The urept snorted and swung its head, trying to catch her with its tusks. Maud fell back at the last second. She fell all the way onto her side, landing hard on her shoulder, the impact shuddering through her bones. But it let her send her momentum into a roll and pitched her forward, all the way underneath the urept. When she rolled over onto her knees she was in the perfect position.

Maud thrust her sword between its ribs. Then she yanked it back, coated in dark blood, and threw herself out from under the monster before it collapsed and crushed her with its dead weight.

As soon as she got to her feet she whirled on her heel, desperate to see what Arland was doing.

What Arland was doing was dunking Ectresh into the spray of the fountain. Ectresh screamed and sputtered, flailing and kicking, but Arland had him by the back of the neck and by the back of Ectresh's full-body not-diving suit. He also had two feet on Ectresh, at least fifty pounds, and wasn't swayed at all by any of the struggling. The fountain had soaked Arland's hair so it looked nearly translucent instead of blond. It was plastered against the back of his neck, and his armor was completely wet, the sheen of water highlighting all the cosmetic injuries the engineers had subjected it to.

Maud shook her head. "I said scare him!"

Arland bared his fangs. "Are you scared, pirate?" he asked, shaking Ectresh.

"Water is nothing to me! Vampire scum-"

Arland shook him again.

Ectresh waved his arms. It made it look like he was splashing. He gasped. "I'll tell you whatever you want! Put me down!"

Maud decided that would have to be fear enough. She wanted to go home.

Before anyone actually did miss them.

***

"Stealth was clearly too much to hope for," Maud muttered under her breath.

"What was that, my lady?" Lord Soren asked, stopping mid-sentence to turn to her.

Maud smiled, lips pressed together. "Nothing."

Soren turned back to Arland. He poked Arland in the chest, and Arland sighed under his breath. Arland had put the same blank expression on his face that he'd worn into the bar on Baha-char. It may have reassured the door watcher enough to let them into the building, but it wasn't doing anything to temper Soren.

"You missed a meeting with your mother and her consort. A public meeting."

Arland said, "It was tea."

Tea could be a formal meeting. It could absolutely be a public meeting. If it was a tea connected to the upcoming minor spring holiday, then Arland's presence at his mother's table would have been expected. Maud was tired, though, and she couldn't call her calendar to mind. Had today been the flower tea ceremony? No. It couldn't have been. She would've been invited, to. So it had to be some other tea… Some other tea Arland hadn't bothered to tell her about when he'd said he'd had time to go on this mission with her.

Soren ignored this. "You return from an unscheduled trip, to walk out in the middle of a crowd of soldiers, wearing an abomination disguised as armor-"

"Told you," Arland said.

"Quiet," Maud hissed.

"-and your hair is a _mess._ What were you thinking? What did you do?"

Helen chose that moment to poke her face out from behind Soren's desk. Maud blinked. She hadn't realized Helen was in here. Actually, when had Helen started spending time in Soren's office? She and Arland had gotten back before evening. Helen should still be in school with the other children.

She was most decidedly not, though. She rested her tiny chin on the edge of Soren's desk and asked, her voice whisper-loud, "Is that candy?"

"Yes, my lady," Arland said.

He lifted the yellow-and-pink striped paper bag the shop had given them. It was tied at the top with a white ribbon and the paper bulged with how much candy Arland had declared was necessary to bring back.

Helen let go of the desk, took a step back, and leapt. She cleared the desk in one bound and landed in a crouch next to Soren. Maud wished she had gotten it on film. Helen was making such high jumps these days. Dina would want to see it.

Soren looked baffled. "Helen, we don't jump in our offices," he said, absently. Then, to Arland, "You went candy shopping?"

"It is one of the things that we did," Arland said, very seriously. "Would you like a piece?"

Instantly, Helen's hand was in the air. She wiggled her fingers. "Me! Me!"

 _"One_ piece," Maud said, as Arland handed their daughter the entire paper bag. Helen said something that had better be 'yes,' if she knew what was good for her, and then she disappeared out the door saying something else about sharing with Ymanie. Maud yelled one more time, "One piece each!" but wasn't sure if it landed.

Soren shook his head as the door shut behind Helen. "What are some of the other things that you did today, Arland?"

This seemed like something that Maud could answer on Arland's behalf. She cleared her throat and said,"We discovered when the next attack on the tachi will be taking place, my lord. Perhaps if we could sit and discuss it?"

"We have names," Arland added.

Soren huffed out a breath. "The tea is still going on. Why don't you present yourself to your mother and allow Lady Maud to fill me in?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Maud said, before Arland could say anything smart in reply.

It was his own fault for trying to skip the tea in the first place.


End file.
